The Cost of Doing Business

n.b.: I first wrote this in October of 2008 and it’s been kicking around my drive since then. Six months later, things are only marginally different. The anxiety I felt then is still there – I am simply learning to live with it.

It was never my plan – this thing I do at work: it just sort of happened. One day, about eight years ago, I just started dressing ‘differently’ at work. It was small things: pants, a shirt, my shoes – nothing dramatic: one thing here and there. But as time went on, I pushed things more and more – and my appearance became more androgynous. I waited for someone to comment, but they never did. And while I never openly discussed what I was doing, I knew it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Somehow, I managed to ‘express my gender’ in a way that made me feel good – and I did it in one of the more conservative of corporate environments: at a Wall Street investment bank.

Just Another Day

Here it comes, another lonely day, playing the game. I’ll sail away on a voyage of no return to see if eternal life is meant to be and if I find the key to the eternal dream…

I could find hundreds of lyrics and quotes to express my feelings and still it would only scratch the surface. I feel at times to be buried so deeply that there no surface through which to break – Or, it is there, but covered with a thick layer of ice – allowing glimpses of a sanctuary, all the while keeping it well out of my grasp.

Wanting what I have

My wife and I don’t talk. Not that we’re silent around one another, but we don’t talk about important things – things which when left unsaid only serve to widen the gap between us. We don’t talk about sex – who’s satisfied, who’s not. We don’t talk about my transness – at least not seriously. I consciously withold on this for fear of upsetting her – for fear of losing her. Every day, in the back of my mind, is the thought that today might be the day when she tells me she’s had enough of this and that it’s over.

No beach to walk on

There are many things about which I do not allow myself the luxury of contemplation. I keep these things tucked away in the back of my thoughts, covered with whatever I can find in the hopes that they will remain forever hidden from me. I do this because to consider these things – to bring them into the forefront of my thoughts – is simply too painful. They become too much of a distraction – to the point where they will occupy the majority of my thoughts. They become an almost deafening noise in my head – and once released, they are difficult to re-capture and once again tuck away. And so I bury them – as deeply as possible – in the hopes that they never again see the light of day.

Miss White Pickett Fence

This is from about a year ago, posted to the mHB boards. I have recently been thinking about this and thought it relevant to share.

Conductor Confusion

I have posted about my adventures Riding the Long Island Railroad – wherein each month I get to see what gender the conductor thinks I am. So far this year, my ticket has been punched as female every month except July: it’s ok, it happens.

Pronoun Ping-Pong

The other day at lunch time, I went to the mall near my office – to a jewelry store I frequent. I’ve been going there for about five years or so, and the same salesperson – a woman in her fifties – usually takes care of me. She knows I’m married (as I’ve bought enough stuff there for my wife) and have kids. And while it has never come up in conversation, I know she recognizes I’m ‘different’ – and it has never seemed to bother her in the least.

Would they listen to me?

Over at the Women’s Space/The Margins blog, there has been a discussion going on – the primary focus of which is transpeople. While the comments are related mostly to transwomen, the overall tone seems to be one of distain for transpeople in general.

Why Gender is a Sphere

Over in her blog, Helen comments on the idea that gender has Shapes, Not Lines. The following was originally posted on Sphere, a website and listserv for genderqueer identified persons.

The following explanation is excerpted from an article in the Summer 1998 issue of Anything That Moves, The Magazine for Anything Bisexual. The article is “I Just Do This to Seduce Gay Men,” by Jan Steckel.

So, who’s that ‘guy’ over there?

Nothing triggers dysphoric anxiety quite like the idea of having do the suit and tie thing for some ‘formal’ event…

Grief, Loss and Change

I think that as transpeople, we often fail to recognize or acknowledge how our change – coming out, transition, whatever – effects those closest in our lives. We downplay the idea that the others in our life feel a real sense of loss – profound loss – and that there is grief associated with that loss. We take the anger and sorrow and hurt expressed by others and turn it into something against us. But sometimes, it isn’t about us. It isn’t about blaming ourselves, what we did or didn’t do, or about ‘asking permission’ to be. Sometimes, it truly is about the others in our lives working things out for themselves.

David and Goliath

I’ve been feeling a bit ‘vulnerable’ as of late with respect to my ‘needs’ with all of this trans stuff. Perhaps what I need most is to be recognized by (or recognizable to) other people. People see a me, make their assumptions (mostly incorrect in all likelihood) and I’m dropped in a box.

Willie McBride

Four years ago, we declared ‘victory’ in the Iraq war. Four years later, we’re still there and Americans are still dieing – and today our President did the veto thing to a bill that would have set a timetable for our troops to pull out of Iraq.

Jane Magazine features Raci Ignacio

Raci Ignacio of TransGeneration is featured in the May 2007 issue of Jane Magazine as one of their 30 Inspirational Women under 30.

Raci’s quote:

“I became more confident about my identity after TransGeneration. It enlarged my support group, including family members who rarely spoke to me when I first started transitioning. Now I go to universities across the U.S. to speak about my life and experiences, educate students and staff members, and inspire others. I think the activist in me was the main reason I agreed to document my life. I felt the T in LGBT had been silent.”

I especially like the fact that she is listed with the other woman without the added qualification as trans.

Congrats Raci!

Is he or isn’t she?

The other day, while waiting on the platform for the PATH train, a young Chinese woman approached me and asked for directions. I helped out and as we were both going in the same direction, I told her I’d let her know which stop was the one she wanted. We got on the train and she sat next to me and we began to chat.

The Impossible Human

This is sort of an adjunct to the previous post on respect: similar theme, slightly different take.

Respect?

Coming out as trans practically guarantees one a loss of status as a viable person and therefore a loss of respect as a person. We become something ‘unreal’ or ‘impossible’ – we have every aspect of our being called into question – we become ‘incompetent’, no longer able to do tasks or make decisions we always have in the past. We now have to continually prove our worthiness to be called ‘human’ – and even when, in fact, we do manage to make our case, our status as such is called into question and respect still denied.

To Whom It May Concern

I realize that this is all a bit strange to you and perhaps even a bit silly at times. I assure you, it is nonetheless real – despite my inability to articulate it with any degree of accuracy. I have lost count of the number of different analogies I’ve used – all which fall far to short of conveying the confusion and complexity it is I feel living in the world.

Dissociated Knowledge

One of my favorite authors is H. P. Lovecraft – that he and I share the same birthday is all the better.

Submitted for your consideration is the following from one of his best known short stories, The Call of Cthulhu:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Intergenderism

And here I thought people didn’t read my old website…

Kris over at Zaadz seems to have taking a liking to the construct of Intergenderism – with which I came up (so to speak) almost eight years ago.

Go give hir blog a read. You’ll be glad you did!